cleaver
Americannoun
-
a heavy, broad-bladed knife or long-bladed hatchet, especially one used by butchers for cutting meat into joints or pieces.
-
a person or thing that cleaves.
noun
Etymology
Origin of cleaver
First recorded in 1325–75, cleaver is from the Middle English word clevere. See cleave 2, -er 1
Explanation
A cleaver is a large knife, used mainly by butchers. The blade of a cleaver is big and square. To cut a steak, you need a good, sharp knife. To cut larger parts of meat, you need something even more powerful: a cleaver (or chopper). Cleavers have fat, square blades and are used for cutting large hunks of meat. It can help you remember the meaning of this word if you know that to cleave is to separate. If you're not a butcher, you probably have no use for a cleaver (unless you're a villain in a horror movie).
Vocabulary lists containing cleaver
Measuring Up
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The Woman Warrior
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Vocabulary from Readings, Unit 3
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"You can see it as a domestic narrative and then you can see it as a jumbo meat cleaver".
From BBC • Feb. 24, 2026
At Wing, he serves sea cucumber inside a crispy spring roll, dramatically sliced tableside with a Chinese cleaver.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 18, 2025
Instead of crossed swords, a butcher’s knife, a cleaver and a honing steel cross behind a crest with paintings of a wheel of cheese, a lobster, a bottle of wine, a head of cattle.
From Seattle Times • Feb. 16, 2024
They play with the locks on your door while you are napping and cleaver banana plants in the middle of the night.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 9, 2023
And she was slicing with such a ferocity, seemingly inattentive to her sharp cleaver, that I was afraid her fingertips would become one of the ingredients of the red-cooked eggplant and shredded pork dish.
From "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
